


His Destiny

by Jujux



Series: Post ADWD [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bitterness, F/M, Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, R Plus L Equals J, not Ned friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 16:31:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16520042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jujux/pseuds/Jujux
Summary: Just another sleepless night in Winterfell.





	His Destiny

 

#### 

Jon

 

 _For the watch!_

_For the watch!_

_For the watch!_

He startled from his short sleep, breathing heavily, face covered in cold sweat. He could still feel the cold steel between his shoulder blades, like he was back at Castle Black all over again.

“Fuck!”

No sleep again. Looks like he’ll have to do without. 

_Just another one of the many things that were taken from me,_ he thought bitterly. He should be used to it by now. He’ll have to do without sleep as he did without countless things throughout most of his life.

_Did dead men even need sleep?_ He didn't know. 

But there was no point of staying in his bed any longer, that he knew. So he put on his boots and his heavy cloak and went out. Ghost got up from his spot near the fire and followed. He never left his side since he came back. And he was grateful for it.

His legs took him where they did on most of his sleepless nights: to the crypts, in front of his mother’s statue. 

All those years he wondered where his mother was, and she was here, under his nose all that time. Watching him hide in the dark crypt when playing hide and seek with his siblings. _Cousins,_ he corrected himself.

He always tried to imagine her. A young girl standing up to her father _and no doubt her brother_ and refusing to do their bidding. A maid dressing herself in armor and joining a tourney just because one of her father’s bannermen was disrespected.

Gods, he wished he knew her! He would take 100 knives in the back just for a few moments with her. Just to feel her arms around him. Just to feel motherly love for once in his life.

But all he had left of her was this fucking statue. And he struggled to relate the stony face in front of him with everything he knew about her.

 

On their own volition, his legs decided to take him even deeper in the crypts, in front of a statue he avoided visiting ever since he returned to Winterfell. He was afraid he might break it into pieces, the rage and bitterness he felt towards its owner was hard to control.

He looked up at the face he knew so well.

_Well, this is a face that looks just like the living version, stony and cold..._

“Are you surprised to see me, uncle?” he asked bitterly.

“Don’t be, Lord Stark, your plan worked flawlessly,” he seethed. His hand went to the smiling scar on his throat, like it always did when he thought back of that night. “That was your plan, wasn’t it? To protect your friend? Maybe your future grandchildren?” he spat out. 

_’The next time we see each other, we’ll talk about your mother’,_ he remembered. He had to take a step back, to put some distance between him and the damned statue, he was afraid that he would destroy it.

He supposed that now he knew where he got his hot temper from. He always thought that it was from his mother, but now he knew better. It was his dragon blood, hot as a volcano at times, always close to erupting. 

He returned his attention to the statue. “It was a great plan, My Lord, and it worked like magic,” he said disgustedly.

“It was my sworn brothers that did it, Lord Stark, if you were curious. I can still feel their cold blades piercing my body every night,” he said, this time in a lower voice. 

“But, I am back now, My Lord, some higher force out there does not like you because it shat on your plan and brought me back.” 

_Or perhaps it does not like me..._

He sighed and sat on the cold ground, his hands wrapped loosely around his knees. 

He looked down and continued “I have to say that I am impressed with your mummery, My Lord. Who would have thought that the so-called ‘most honorable man in the Seven Kingdoms’ was actually the biggest liar on the continent? The most celebrated of mummers would have surely been impressed by this farce you played for so many years.

“You fooled everyone.”

“When I talked with Lord Reed and he told me all about my parents, he said that he offered to foster me at Greywater Watch,” he could feel himself getting angry again. “Why didn’t you agree? Were you afraid that the man might take pity on me and tell me the truth? Or perhaps you were afraid that I might grow mad like my grandfather and you wanted to keep an eye on me? To protect the world from another mad Targaryen?” he snorted.

“Howland Reed told me that my mother made you promise that you would take care of me. Is this how you took care of me? Sending me to freeze to death at the end of the world between rapist and murderers, without even telling me that I had another option?” he spat.

“I suppose you were pleased...” he mused out loud. ”You kept your promise and also managed to keep your best friend happy, by ending Prince Rhaegar’s line without even getting your hands dirty,” he yelled angrily. “No doubt you slept like a baby at night.”

He was on his feet, shouting at the statue now, way past caring that someone could hear him. “You let me think that my mother didn’t want me! Couldn’t you just tell me that she died and asked you to take care of me? That she loved me?” he was spitting as he spoke now. “I lived my life thinking that I was the honorable Ned Stark’s only mistake! Do you know how that felt? Everything I did was so that people see me as me, Jon Snow, not some fucking mistake in the middle of a war! To recognize me as your son, not as the only fucking dishonorable thing you did!”

He couldn’t stop now even if he tried.

“You let Lady Catelyn hate me and tell her children that I will usurp Robb from his rightful place as Lord of Winterfell! What did I ever do to deserve her constant ire? Even If I was your son, what fault did I have that you couldn’t keep your cock in your breeches? Should the children pay for their parents' sins?” he yelled.

“Well, is she was alive, surely Lady Stark would be pleased to know that she was right all along. I am King in the North now. All your plans were in vain, My Lord. I still became what I was apparently born to be. Despite the obstacles and my own reluctance, I still became a King. I suppose it was my destiny.” Then he continued in a silent, barely audible voice: ”Yet, even now that I know that I was supposed to be a King since my birth, I still can’t help but feel unworthy of it at times.” 

He deflated fully as he slowly started to remember that the world had bigger problems than him being bitter and feeling sorry for himself.

“I guess one thing didn’t change, I was cursed when I was just a bastard and I am cursed now, as a King. Jaehaerys Targaryen is just as cursed as Jon Snow was.

“I am stuck between a horde of angry and scared wildlings, that are struggling to adapt to our rules, a bunch of idiot Northern Lords who refuse to see the real threat, who mock me behind my back, yet they kiss my ass and throw their daughters at me when they have my attention, between crazy Lanninsters blowing everything up with wildfire and my aunt coming from Essos with her dragons and her armies of savages and slaves, no doubt to take what she perceives as her birthright.

“There is even some lad fighting his way in the Stormlands with the help of the Golden Company and the Dornish army. And you know what’s the best part? He’s pretending to be my dead brother Aegon.” he gave the statue a hollow laugh.

“And all this shit pales compared to the real enemy” he sighed. “How do I convince all these idiots fighting against each other to fight the dead together?

“You know, even now, after all this, sometimes I ask myself what would you do in my situation..." 

“And I hate myself for it.”

“I'm in a mind to just fuck off to White Harbor and get on the first ship to Essos. See the Free Cities, maybe even go as far as YiTi. See what the world has to offer. And just let these fools kill each other and the dead can have whoever is left.

“But I can’t do that. Despite everything, I did learn many good things from you, Lord Stark. One of them is responsibility. And for that, I will be forever grateful.”

He got up and shook the dirt off his breeches. It must have been close to morning now, I was time to stop moaning and get back to work.

“Farewell, Lord Stark,” he said. “If things go wrong and the Others reach Winterfell, we might even see each other again.”

“Because the dead rarely stay dead these days.”


End file.
